Burnout Paradise Controls Software Behind Natal#

If you havent found the options menu During gameplay press ESC, and then use F1 and F2 to navigate, I think its 2-3 presses of F2 for the options menu (Labeled 'Under The Hood'). The control/sound settings are all on the same menu. Includes toy versions of the following cars: Hunter Cavalry, Hunter Manhattan, Krieger WTR, Jansen P12, Hunter Takedown 4x4, Carson GT Concept, Hunter Citizen, Carson Inferno Van, and the Nakamura Firehawk GP Competition Bike. Take the remote control on these irresponsibly fast toy cars in the Toys Pack.

Burnout Paradise Controls Software Behind Natal

In other words, I would bet that 3DV is the source of that hardware.Here's my quick impression: Natal is for real, and it may well change the way people experience video games, as well as anything else that is run through an Xbox 360.Tsunoda began our demonstration by explaining the problem Microsoft had set out to solve: To make the gaming experience fun for everyone, while not alienating the core Xbox 360 fans.'The control system is simple,' Tsunoda said of Natal. But he wouldn't address the question of where the hardware came from, or specifically, if it came from 3DV Systems, a company that has been working on this kind of technology, and which Microsoft recently acquired.Having seen the 3DV technology a couple of years ago, I can say that what Microsoft is showing today is very much the same but with a much more user-friendly front end. We were allowed to ask whatever we wanted, but we weren't able to take video or photos of the technology.One thing that came out of the presentation: Tsunoda said unequivocally that the software behind Natal was developed entirely in-house at Microsoft.

'This just works the way you want it to.'Clearly, Microsoft is banking heavily on software developers-who are just now getting development kits-being able to utilize Natal in their games in such a way that players don't have to do any kind of configuration or tinkering in order to get it to work. These features allow the system to track a player in 3D space, as well as to capture spoken commands from multiple people, none of whom have to wear a headset.Asked how Natal differs from the many other motion-control cameras that have come along over the years, Tsunoda simply said that nothing that has ever come along before has been able to instantly work when a new player steps up in front of it, or when the lighting conditions change, or when someone else steps in front of a player.'Ours, you can play any way you want,' he said. With a couple of exceptions where the player didn't stand in the right place, Natal did seem to almost instantly recognize that a new person was playing and, then, respond to their movements.This may have been most impressive during game play of the racing game, 'Burnout Paradise,' when it was clear that Natal was doing a fine job of translating the player's hand movements-mimicking holding and turning a steering wheel-into moving the car on-screen.Tsunoda said the technology behind Natal includes an RGB camera, an infrared camea, a multi-array microphone and a depth map. We saw that in action when, one-by-one, we were invited to step up and play either a kickball game or a driving game.

But right now, having seen Natal close up, I have to say I'm a believer. As I wrote Monday, any success depends, though, entirely on price point, and how users get their hands on it. But Tsunoda was insistent that that is Natal's value proposition and that developers will have no trouble making it work that way in their games.If that's true, then it would seem that Microsoft has a real winner on its hands.